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Show 330 ON T H E NESTING O F C A L L I C H T H Y S LITTORALIS. [June 29, June 29, 1886. Osbert Salvin, Esq., F.R.S., Vice-President, in the Chair. The Secretary exhibited, on behalf of Mr. John Brazier, of Sydney, N.S.W., C.M.Z.S., a series of 55 eggs of the Pacific Porphyrio (Porphyrio vitiensis), and read a note forwarded by Mr. Brazier showing the extraordinary fecundity of the individual of this species which had laid them. The bird in question was obtained at Mare, Loyalty Islands, in May 1873, and had been kept in captivity in Sydney until December 1882, when she was accidentally killed by poison. She had laid eggs as follows:- 1876. June-December 36 1877. June-December 44 1878. June-December 68 1879. January, February, and May-December 83 1880. January, and March-December 93 1881. January, February, and April-December .... 101 1882. January, February, and April-October 66 Total in 7 years 491 The Secretary read the following letter, addressed to him by Captain J. A. M . Vipan, F.Z.S., on the nesting of a South-American Siluroid fish (Callichthys littoralis1) in this country :- " Stibbington Hall, Wansford. June 26th, 1886. " DEAR DR. SCLATER, "Two Cascaduras (Callichthys littoralis), from Trinidad, that I have in m y aquarium, commenced making a nest on June 6th; but that, and the one they made on June 9th, they soon pulled to pieces. On the night of the 11th they began a new one ; it consisted of pieces of Valisneria, all the leaves of the Nymphaa that were growing in the tank, which they bit off close to the roots of the plants, and a great quantity of river-moss (Fontinalis antipyretica), each piece being two or three times the size of the fish, so that they must have had hard work to bring them to the surface. They worked these materials together by some mucous substance uutil the outside was hard, the whole being under a quarter of an inch thick ; they next buoyed up the structure with a quantity of mucous foam until it was raised three and a half inches above the water. The whole nest was nine inches long and seven inches wide, and somewhat resembled a finger-glass turned upside down on the top of the water, with the interior filled with froth. The fish kept swimming close under it all the time on their backs and filling it with foam. When finished, on the 12th, the female 1 Giinther, Cat. Fishes, v. p. 227 ; Sclater, P. Z. S. 1885, p. 717. |
